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Environmentalists who see this year as their best hope for a major global warming bill can’t seem to escape a familiar foe: former Bush administration officials they fought year after year on energy and climate issues.

As the House Energy and Commerce Committee debates its ambitious cap-and-trade bill, environmentalists will find James Connaughton, President George W. Bush’s top environmental adviser, advocating for Constellation Energy. Karen Harbert, a top Bush Energy Department official, is now heading the energy practice at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — a leading critic of Democratic climate change proposals. And F. Chase Hutto III, Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy and environment adviser, has formed ClearView Energy Partners, aimed at helping businesses navigate climate change legislation.

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“We’re glad to be rid of the Bush administration, but we’ll never really get rid of the legacy, and these folks will still be in demand by someone,” said Greenpeace research director Kert Davies. “We’re not done by a long shot.”

But green groups say they are also trying to focus the majority of their energy on the Obama administration, casting former Bush aides as a fading memory.

“That’s where we’re focused — on those decision makers and on the Hill,” said Betsy Loyless, the National Audubon Society’s senior vice president for advocacy and policy. “These former [Bush] officials’ knowledge is valuable in some instances. ... It’s not at all surprising that people find their way.”

Environmentalists are particularly flustered by one Bush official who may stay on the inside of the Department of the Interior. The potential appointment of Glenda Owens as director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement has sent environmentalists into a tizzy.

Owens, a longtime bureaucrat and current deputy director of the office, helped coal plant operators get environmental reviews streamlined on mountaintop removal — a process that scrapes away the sides and tops of mining mountains, causing extreme topographical and ecological changes. Owens also helped defend the mining agency against lawsuits.

“A lesson the Obama administration should have drawn from Clinton: Do not embrace holdovers,” said Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose group is opposing Owens’ candidacy. “There are lawsuits and litigation pending over this, but no one in the administration is saying no. We are not seeing anything that is articulating change.”

A spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar confirmed Owens is among candidates being considered for the position but said no decisions have been made.

“We’re still in the ‘blame Bush’ phase of this session, and one would think that individuals that had positions of high authority would be viewed with some concern,” said Defenders of Wildlife climate expert Richard Charter. “How you get change we can believe in from some of the same folks who brought us the messes we’re in, it’s a legit question to ask.”

Connaughton, who was Bush’s chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is jockeying for energy companies to be drawn into an emissions plan in slow steps, something environmentalists argue will prevent the traction needed to reverse global warming.

Connaughton says he’s carrying out “the next logical steps” on Bush’s agenda on global warming, which he says includes capping carbon emissions.

This was Sen. Barbara Boxer's opening statement Sept. 24 during a hearing on President Bush's environmental legacy. The Administration did not send representatives to the hearing.

The purpose of this hearing is to examine the Bush Administration’s record on important public health and environmental matters. Unfortunately, instead of reviewing accomplishments—we look back on years filled with environmental rollbacks that serve special interests, and do not serve the American people.

Today, this Committee will shine a light on the Bush Administration’s efforts to undermine EPA and the Department of the Interior’s mission to protect public health and the environment.

A clear picture of the Bush Administration’s environmental record can provide a roadmap for the next Administration and Congress which will be useful in the effort to reverse these dangerous decisions.

Time and again, the White House has interfered in EPA decisions that should be based on science and the law. Time and again, EPA has ignored the law and the advice of its own scientific experts.

Let’s take a look at a few examples of this disturbing record:

In one of its first official acts, the Bush EPA announced that it was suspending the newly strengthened standard for arsenic in tap water. After a public outcry and legislation blocking it, EPA finally retreated.

EPA proposed to do what it called the “CHEERS study” jointly with the chemical industry, in which low-income families were offered gifts and other incentives if they agreed to enroll their newborn children in pesticides studies in their homes over a two year period. After a great outcry, EPA cancelled the study. EPA recently tried to revive a study much like CHEERS, but retreated after our Committee’s staff asked detailed ethical questions about it, which EPA could not answer.

EPA set a weaker clean air standard for toxic soot than its independent scientific advisors, children’s health advisors, and its own scientists recommended. Soot kills thousands of Americans every year, especially children and the elderly.

EPA also rejected the advice of its own scientists, scientific advisors and children’s health experts, and set a weaker health standard for smog than the scientists recommended. Smog poses a serious health risk to millions of people, killing thousands of people every year.

EPA set a weaker standard for lead pollution in air, and for lead paint cleanup, than its independent scientific advisors recommended. As we all know, lead is highly toxic to children and can reduce IQ, cause learning and behaviour problems, and damage children’s developing brains.

The courts, including Bush-appointed judges, have repeatedly struck down EPA rules that weakened public health protections. Judges have used strong language to express their frustration with EPA’s failure to comply with the law, saying for example “only in a Humpty Dumpty world” would EPA’s explanations make sense, or that EPA “employs the logic of the Queen of Hearts” in Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice in Wonderland, in two EPA clean air cases.

According to a recent GAO report prepared at my request, EPA political officials worked with the White House and the Pentagon to undermine the process for evaluating toxic chemical risks. The Bush Administration’s system puts polluting agencies like DOD in the driver’s seat, with an ability to secretly stop or weaken EPA actions to control toxic chemicals like perchlorate, TCE, and other pollutants.

EPA has severely weakened its Office of Children’s Health Protection and largely ignored its Children’s Health Advisory Committee, as we learned from GAO just last week.

EPA’s record on global warming could hardly be worse.

Despite the President’s campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, the White House reversed course and rejected actions to control global warming pollution.

It literally took an order from the U.S. Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA to force EPA to begin to address the problem. Even then, the White House blocked EPA from issuing its proposed “endangerment finding” under the Clean Air Act, which would have given the green light to action on global warming.

The Bush Administration denied the California waiver, which would have allowed California and other states to set limits on global warming emissions from vehicles. EPA management, after meetings at the White House, reversed the agency’s plans and ignored unanimous career staff recommendations for the first time in 40 years under the Clean Air Act.

EPA has slowed down its Superfund program to practically a crawl. Over the last seven years, the pace of Superfund cleanups has dropped by about 50% compared to the last seven years of the prior administration, from about 80 cleanups per year to 40 or less.

We just learned that EPA has decided that it will not set a health standard for the toxic rocket fuel perchlorate in our drinking water, even though EPA data show that up to 16.6 million people are exposed to unsafe levels. Perchlorate is especially risky for infants and children, because it interferes with their thyroid, which controls normal development.

On occasion, EPA has taken a positive step, including the issuance of cleanup orders to the Department of Defense, though more work is needed to ensure DOD follows through. Unfortunately, the Bush record of rollbacks overshadows these efforts.

The Department of Interior record is causing concern as well. The Bush administration has also proposed to dramatically weaken the rules under the Endangered Species Act — another 11th hour attempt to undermine environmental protections in a manner that is not authorized by law.

The Endangered Species Act is one of America’s most successful environmental laws. Indeed, just last year, the Fish and Wildlife Service removed the Bald Eagle—the very symbol of our country—from the Endangered Species List.

The Bush Administration has proposed to rewrite the rules so that the most expert agencies in protecting endangered species, the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service, can be largely cut out of the process when agencies that want to build roads or big projects and must make a decision about whether their actions “may affect” a listed species. These two agencies are America’s primary wildlife agencies and have extensive expertise in assessing, protecting, and recovering threatened and endangered species.

Hopefully wiser heads than the environmentalists will hold sway on the climate change bills. More and more scientists are coming out and saying that man made global warming does not exist. It is certainly not a settled science as is claimed by some.

Since we have records for just a little over 100 years of temperatures, it should not be accepted as the average. Weather is never static. It is constantly changing and will always be changing. We have not had temperatures get warmer since the late 90's. The ice may be thinning at one pole but thickening at the other. Greenland was not always covered by ice and snow, hench it's name. And this was before the industrial revolution.

It is time to accept the fact that much of the info put forth by Al Gore has been found to be wanting. The computer models are not correct. The gloom and doom screamed from his movie is just like Chicken little.

No fear mongering...thank goodness science and the environment will have a chance with Obama-Biden Administration. The U.S. EPA had nothing for which to feel proud about over the past eight years, (but even farther back in our history), nothing to brag about as far as protecting (and Protection is part of its department name for crying out loud) the environment. Per usual, earth and its resources were raped and abused, and individuals who appreciate a clean, healthy environment now and for our future, were treated as second class citizens. Why? As said by other posters, money and big business...always money and big business ran the show under Repub administrations.

I look forward to a big change in the EPA. My repulsion of the EPA started with the anti-environmentalist Secretary of Interior James Watt under...who else...President Reagan. Please, look up Watt's controversial tenure. And my disgust with EPA grew with Secty. of Interior Gale Norton, under... who else...GW Bush. Norton, who ending a controversial five-year term in which she expanded drilling, logging and development on public lands in the Western United States and fought to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.

Secretary of Interior shouldn't be chosen by the GOP greedy party, which puts interests of business and money first over people and the environment.

Greenland was not always covered by ice and snow, hench it's name. And this was before the industrial revolution.

From whence does that information come? There's more to global warming than air temperature. The temperature of the water comes into play here too. Changes in the flow of warm and cold currents in the atmosphere and in sea control the weather.

More and more scientists are coming out and saying that man made global warming does not exist. It is certainly not a settled science as is claimed by some.

Rep. Joe Barton (Texas) is one of the leaders in opposition to the current bill proposed by Rep. Waxman. The Republican plan is to attach 100 amendments to the bill in order to dismantle it. And so the "fight" goes on. It is possible to control polution, but not if we keep "grandfathering" exceptions. The cement plants south of DFW continue to polute the air around us, but Joe Barton doesn't think so. Controls would hurt the "bottom line" too much----wonder what harm it will bring to our children and grandchildren?

Bush will remain the Boogeyman for all freedom-loving Americans for years to come. His name will be mentioned countless times in '12 elections by Dems, and Republicans will do anything to shy away from him.

With Obama in the White House, we are almost ready to really sock it to industry and big business. The problem is that the unemployment rate stands at only 9%, which means that 91% of the people still have jobs. We need a voting majority to really take the business interests down, which means we have to get unemployment up to at least 51%.

While we know how evil the corporations are, many of the people who work there don't. They aren't as enlightened as we are; they still think having a job is more important than Sticking It To The Man. People who work in businesses tend to put their own parochial interests, like shoes for their children, ahead of the greater good. What we need is a government program to send shoes to all the nation's children. "A child with shoes is a child whose feet don't hurt" can be our slogan. So let's do it. For the children!

The problem is that the unemployment rate stands at only 9%, which means that 91% of the people still have jobs. We need a voting majority to really take the business interests down, which means we have to get unemployment up to at least 51%.

The unemployment number does not count people NOT looking for jobs. Welfare + the coming Amnesty (with citizenship) will give them the 51% when those on Minimum wage realize that they can make more money quitting their job and living off the Government.

Bailouts now equal 90% of annual GDP- In its latest estimate, Bloomberg correspondents Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry reported on Tuesday that the Federal Reserve, Treasury, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have saddled taxpayers with $12.8 trillion so far. America's 2008 gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion. Hence, the federal bailout now equals 90.14 percent of GDP. If that is not socialism, what is?

It's a friggin' HOAX - this 'let's save the environment' kinda scheme, because OVERPOPULATION is the primary cause of this mess. We have made planet earth a big garbage can, and the oceans a big toilet bowl, consuming all the natural resources and replacing them with steal and plastics. Now, nobody on that "top" is talking about it because, guess what, they want to sell, sell, sell, and make billions$$.

That's why all the anti-dotes to global warming is a hoax.

Whose fault is it? Women's fault. The entire mess we're in is our fault -- women's fault. Let's have some of us stay home, teach our kids how to become honorable human beings, respectful to others and respectful to God's planet, and make sure when making babies, that baby is going to be taken care of with love and enough money to have a good life. Now, Frankly, if i were a man, i'd be gay because i do NOT have much respect for most women.i'm sure Gloria Steinems of this world will come and report me to Janet Napolitano...

The enviro whack jobs are destroying free enterprise capitalism. But worse. They wish to bring us back to a phoney Rousseau-type society of naturalism. Blah. One should note the snail darter in TVA Tenn. and the Sacramento Delta smelt in N. Ca.. Dem liberal socialist pacifist green types would rather save those worthless fish than provide cheaper electricity and water to those two states. GW is not proved. It is in fact a joke and a fraud to drive this nation domestically and internationally into a second place stance among nations. It penalizes American ingenuity , innovation and keeps us from an independent energy plan where we could drill for oil, get natural gas, get shale oil, build nuclear plants all with safe ways ala Britain and Norway in the North Sea. It is time for the public to tell these whackoe greens that enough is enough. As gas prices rise, as Obama raises taxes on almost everything, this only hurts our domestic and international stances. Our military will suffer without more energy to run it. Enough is enough. These liberals would rather have the USA look like Zimbabwe than the superior USA that we could become once more if the Left just grew up and admitted that they were anti-American and would repent and apologize to the rest of us.

The greatest man-made crisis people face is socialists in government. Anti-American socialists interfere with any and all use of natural resources and energy consumption. They obstruct self-reliance by America to force international wealth redistribution. In doing so, socialists have forced increased consumption of foreign fossil fuels. They act much more like anti-American traitors trying to destroy the US than patriotic Americans' trying to conserve and protect its resources and people.

Socialists "man made global warming crisis" hype is merely another excuse to expand socialism in government to seize and redistribute more private property of useful people to worthless socialists. See, e.g., Emma Brindal of Friends of the Earth, who said, “[a] climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.” This is why Obama's budget plans to redistribute $60 billion in CO2 emission (cap-n-trade) taxes to low income Democrats.

Here are the facts: The Sun is a 386 x 10^24 (i.e. 386 Yotta) Watt nuclear fusion reactor making life possible on Earth 93 million miles away. Changes in the Sun’s radiation dwarf any other cause of warming, including variations in Earth’s orbit and atmospheric gases. Each day, more solar energy reaches Earth than is consumed by all mankind in 27 years. A single solar flare can produce energy equivalent to 100 million 10 Megaton nuclear fusion warheads. The average solar energy received by Earth’s atmosphere, Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), is estimated to be 1,368 Watts/m2, varying with solar variations. A TSI shift of 0.2% equates to all energy consumed by all humans in one year. Only 70% of TSI is absorbed. TSI has increased 0.1% during the mere 25 years NASA has been measuring it, explaining at least the bulk of any actual warming trend.

Solar variation explains Earth’s warming and cooling cycles long before the burning of fossil fuels, e.g., “Medieval Warm Period” and “Little Ice Age” when average temperatures were up or down several degrees and atmospheric CO2 was higher or lower because of the solar variations. Despite knowing that non-human activity can swing temperature far more, alarmists blame only the tiny annual 3% human-generated portion of atmospheric CO2 emissions for an alleged 30% increase in CO2 and 1.33 ° F average rise in the past 150 years, which is far too small a period to consider. Alarmists ignore a lack of TSI data for 125 of the past 150 years plus the fact that measurement techniques have changed. Further, alarmists selectively rejected high CO2 measurements (in excess of 400 ppm) in the 1800’s, accepting only low measurements so they could argue there’s been a 100 ppm (parts per million) CO2 increase allegedly from 280 to 380 ppm in the past 150 years. The selective rejection of data is not science; it is the politics of socialists. Further still, alarmists assume increased CO2 is a cause rather than an effect of temperature increases. They further manufacture a crisis by predicting a 50% to 250% increase in CO2 and a 2 to 11.5°F rise in the next 100 years. Measuring to the Karman line 100 km (1000 m) or 62.1 miles above sea level, the amount of gas in Earth’s atmosphere is approximately 51,924,386,582,000,000,000 cubic meters weighing approx. 5,000 trillion metric tons (1 metric ton = 1000 kg = 2,204.6 lbs). Of this, N and O are approx. 99%, water vapor is approx. 1% and CO2 is a mere trace gas at 0.038% (1.9 trillion metric tons). Plants absorb CO2 and release oxygen in the carbon cycle. Natural processes involving oceans, soil, plants, etc. emit (and absorb) 33 times more CO2 per year than do all human emissions. Humans contribute a mere 3% (6 billion metric tons) of the 186 billion metric tons of CO2 emitted annually. The other 97% (180 billion metric tons) of annual CO2 is naturally occurring, mostly from oceans covering 71% of Earth. CO2 consumed is approximately the same as CO2 emitted, including by humans. Even annual variations in emission/absorption of CO2 exceeds emissions by humans. Alarmists allege CO2 causes 9% of the greenhouse effect, which means that, even if solar variance has nothing to do with alleged warming, alarmists argue that humans produce at most 0.27% of the greenhouse effect.

Socialists argue global warming is a crisis to try to force quick, uneducated decisions, as snakeoil salesmen usually do. When government officials combined with privateers like Al Gore and GE vigorously pursue regulation, rest assured there is at least one self-serving scam behind it. Seizing control of and redistributing American wealth to non-productive Americans and foreigners, with privateers like Al Gore positioned as an Enron-type “carbon credit” trade middleman skimming money for doing nothing useful, obviously cannot control Earth’s temperatures or “solve” “man made” “global warming." Now there's a wide variety of people trying to capitalize on assumed forthcoming “global warming” regulation. Saddling and riding capitalism for socialist goals is nothing new. Hitler and FDR engaged in this so-called "Third Way" brand of socialism. They are merely "smart" socialists by recognizing that free enterprise is a better economic engine than pure socialism by providing some carrots and sticks to motivate people to work and take risk.